Cookie policy of Würth Elektronik

General note on data protection

Dear customers,

We at Würth Elektronik take the protection of your personal data very seriously. We place importance on long-term customer relationships based on trust and the belief in the quality of our products. Misusing data in the interests of quickly achieving commercial success is not a part of our ethos.

Therefore, we are committed not only to fulfilling the statutory requirements in the new GDPR but also dealing responsibly with all data within the meaning of GDPR. In addition, we would like to clearly inform you about how we handle your data. If, however, the wording is somewhat difficult to follow as we are referring to incontestable legal requirements, please excuse the use of this legal jargon.

Use of cookies on our websites

Here you will find detailed information on the types of cookies used on the websites of Würth Elektronik as well as the purposes for which they are placed. This information must be provided by law and must be displayed in one form or another on a website that complies with data protection regulations.

As a general rule: Cookies are small files that a website (such as ours) saves in your internet browser so that it can access them at a later time. In this context, you may often read the sentence “... to improve your visit to our website...”. What is the purpose of all this? Cookies allow us to record data between two webpages or in between two visits to the same website. Without cookies, we would always consider you as a first-time visitor to our website.

This is best illustrated in an example: When visiting our circuit boards shop, WEdirekt.de, you set your preferred language. The problem is if you switch to another page on WEdirekt.de without cookies, we would be unable to recognise that you are the same visitor who just changed the language settings. Therefore, you would have to re-set the language after each click, which would be very, very tedious in the long term. As you can see, cookies are necessary, and without them our websites could only be used in a limited manner or not at all (more information about the types of cookies can be found in the next section).

Why do cookies have such a poor reputation that we have to issue a guideline on cookies? In general, cookies per se are not bad, but rather what the owner of a website could potentially do with them. Again, cookies are used to recognise the visitor to a website. They do not recognise the visitor personally by name, but merely in the sense of “I see that this web browser accessed our site just a few seconds ago (or one week ago)”. This is similar to how a salesperson in a store may remember your face after several visits. This fact in itself is neither good nor bad; it depends on how the sales staff handles the situation. It can be a good thing if you are recognised as a regular customer and thus given preferential treatment. If you are treated indiscreetly, however, this may be a breach of trust.

The same applies to cookies. At the end of the day, trust is what counts: trust that your data will be dealt with carefully and in your interests. We want to ensure this trust by providing you extensive information on cookies.

What you need to know about cookies:

• Cookies alone are not bad or harmful.
• Some features or even entire websites do not work without cookies.
• Cookies can only be read by a website with the same domain with which the cookie was placed.
• Paradoxically, in order to prevent cookies, you usually have to place a cookie that says you do not want any (other) cookies.

To sum up, you cannot determine good or bad data protection on cookies alone! There is only a very slight connection between cookies and data protection, if at all. For this reason, we would like to provide you with an overview on how we handle your data in general, not only with cookies. Please also read our privacy policy.

Classification of cookies

Although (or precisely because) cookies are often misunderstood, we would like to give you extensive information about the cookies on WE websites and how they are used. First of all, we should classify the different types of cookies. This makes it easier to assess our individual cookies in the following section.

Classification based on storage period

An initial classification is according to how long the cookie will be saved:

• “Session” cookies expire (are deleted) once you close the browser when you end your “session”.
• “Persistent” cookies are saved for a longer period. This can range from a few seconds to months. After this time, your browser will automatically delete the cookie – unless it is renewed, for example the next time the website is accessed.

Please note that some browsers offer the option of restoring sessions (i.e., the pages left open) after rebooting your computer. This effectively disables the session cookies, and they become persistent cookies. We have no control over this.

Classification based on use

We use the following general classification for you to assess our cookies in the following section. This classification is from Würth Elektronik and is based on our own offers; and it can only be partly applied to other websites.

• Technically necessary cookies: Setting so-called "technically necessary cookies", i.e. cookies that simplify the use of our websites and mobile apps for you and enable some functions of our websites and mobile apps in the first place, are absolutely necessary and do not require consent to be given.
• Statistics: We are constantly working on improving our web offerings for you. For this reason, we measure, among other things, how visitors come to our websites, which pages they visit and when they leave them.
• Marketing: These cookies enable us to only show you offerings and advertising content on our websites, as well as on third party sites, that are of relevance to you.

List of cookies placed by Würth Elektronik

Note: Some of the following cookies are placed by third parties whose services we use to operate of our websites. Although they are legally bound to announce changes to their cookies, there may be changes to their name, content or use which we are not aware of. We would be grateful if you tell us about any gaps in this documentation.

Statistics

Marketing